Out of Beta

Both Blogger Buzz and the Official Google Blog announced the Blogger Design Template is now out of draft format: Blogger Buzz: Blogger Template Designer Now Available to Everyone and Official Google Blog: Blogger Template Designer Now Available to Everyone

"Since the launch, we fixed many bugs and added even more themes and background images. But the Blogger Template Designer has only been available on Blogger in Draft, which is why we’re excited to announce that the Blogger Template Designer is now available to everyone." -- Blogger Buzz, 6/10/2010

The change is immediately noticeable upon (first) log in as a pop-up details the design options update for users. I am a bit concerned with how videos appear after embedding, sometimes they disappear, but maybe that is one of the bugs will fix in the near future. I've spent time adjusting my blog layout using the new design template (see here, here, here, here, and here) and have to admit I am a bit tantalized by the claim they have "added even more themes and background images."

What would it hurt to just take a look?

Another day, another template

I think, maybe, I am having a bit too much fun playing with the new templates in Blogger Draft. I have been investigating the photo background options and some are a bit less blog friendly than I imagined. There is a library stack full of books just begging to be used for a background image. Unfortunately the image does not lend itself to readability of text once it's applied. I tried messing with colors, the transparency factor, and even choosing different color palettes.

Today it's polka dots. They are cheerful on a rainy day and make me happy. At least for now, I can be fickle.

Trying Something New

Forty five minutes later I have a new blog layout, courtesy of new templates in Blogger Draft. Oddly enough, the sidebar works fine in Mozilla Firefox, but still displays in an annoying manner in Internet Explorer 8.

For now I will just be annoyed.

Blogger Templates

Blogger Buzz posted yesterday about a new template designer available to users; Express yourself with the Blogger template designer. The post had key things to draw my interest, a way to reinvent my blog layout (toys to play with) as well as a video explaining how things work. Remember, it's a Beta, aka Blogger Draft, option.

More feedburner

From the files labeled "I knew it was too good to be true," comes a post from the Known Issues for the New Blogger blog:

"The new “Post Feed Redirect” will occasionally stop redirecting clients when it is set to a FeedBurner feed. The workaround for now is to add an “?alt=atom” parameter to the feed URL in your FeedBurner settings." (Known Issues, 7/31/07)

I went back through all of my blogs, added this fix to each site feed, and now will wonder about another shift in the subscriber statistics displayed.

Updated: 12:45 pm

Taking a short break from shelf-shifting I worked a bit with the feedburner headline animator. The case of the magical missing post clip art, it's here - it's gone, is because I wanted to try my own background on the headliner; it didn't like the photo I loaded. I deleted the clip art and decided the headline animator was not necessary here. Play to work.

Tags: Known Issues for the New Blogger, Feedburner

New widget, old statistics

Blogger Buzz, news about Blogger, is strategically located directly below the blog dashboard after login. I do not pay close attention to everything posted there, sometimes it is simply part of the atmosphere, but lately there have been posts regarding Google, Feedburner, and Blogger in Draft that have snagged my attention - especially the new search box widget. Since the navigation bar at the top of each blog has a search box that allows users to search the web and/or search the displayed blog, I wondered what the widget would have to offer.

I logged into my account via Blogger in Draft and added the "beta" search box (it was simple, just follow the add a page element directions as if adding any other blog widget) to the sidebar below above the blog labels and did a sample search. What I like are the search result display properties; within the blog, above the most current post. It appears to actually be a "box" and includes the proverbial "X" to close it when finished and return to the basic blog layout. A more visually appealing option than the navigation bar as well as more efficient. What I don't particularly like is the specificity needed for the search. For example, I searched "cambridge whos who" and did not have a hit but searched a second time with cambridge who's who" and it retrieved the three posts pictured to the right. Overall I'm satisfied with the widget and may move it farther up in the sidebar for ease of use. This brings me to the second portion of this post, statistics.

While posts on children's literature, ALA, recreational reading, and dailing post information continue to be popular, far and away the most frequent search continues to be for Cambridge Who's Who. A quick look at my Statscounter account this evening reveals out of the last 100 search terms (keyword analysis, information rolls over and the log remains at 100), 48% of them are in some way, shape, or form looking for information on Cambridge. Sixty-six terms were used leading people to the blog, thirty-two of them were as follows:

• 11 cambridge whos who scan
• 6 whos who among executives
• 5 whos who cambridge edition
• 3 cambridge whos who
• 2 cambridge whos who among
• 2 cambridge whos who fee
• 1 reviews cambridge whos who
• 1 cambridge whos who among executives and professional women
• 1 cambridge who's who

It is the topic that does not go away, a never-ending-story (if I may). If their mailing budget is any indication of profit, they must be doing well. But I would guess for every person who purchases the service, there are an equal number of potential customers searching the web for information.

Tags: Blog widgets, Blogger draft search box, Blogger draft, Widgets

Blogger Beta, you have to be kidding

I know I keep blathering on about the paragraphs within the posts issue, but it really offends my anal, organizational, visual literacy, need for white space, sensibilities to have such messy looking posts appear out of the blue. While posting on another blog this morning I noticed something in the "edit html" view (because the other blog post created paragraphs correctly). If there is a <-- paragraph -- > and < /p > within the posts, followed by a space or break, the paragraph appeared after posting. Messing with the coding in the "edit html" version of a post does not do all that much and I only use it to enter the < -- p -- > code when <-- br --> is not working.

This glitch has to be a result of beta and the template I chose.

See, it worked.

Blogger Beta, again

Is it only a coincidence, or are there additional page layout issues with blogger beta? This afternoon I noticed that paragraph's are not displayed correctly within posts now that I have changed my layout over to "advanced." All of the post paragraphs are mushed together, no matter which browser I use for viewing. It is really very unattractive.

Here's hoping it is just a glitch (this should be a new paragraph).

Update: 1/30/07

It appears the missing paragraph issue is not my imagination because it's still happening this morning. I checked a few other blogs I author, work and professional, and none of the other blogs have the problem. So, is it this particular template? It should not be since I've been using it for 9 months virtually trouble free. Is it the blogger beta and new template? It should not be since I changed two other blogs to the "advanced" template and they look fine. I am going to trouble-shoot the settings and see if the switch changed anything. Guess I will know soon enough.

Somthing I do know is contacting blogger for help is useless. The blogger help page is particularly circular in nature and finding an actual email address .....

Blogger Beta features

One of the new features Blogger offers with the "beta" version is labeling. I'm a librarian. I like order and organization and the whole concept behind labeling posts. However, in order to have the labels show as a sidebar feature, bloggers have to change over to the new template organizational theme. I have been delaying this procedure since Blogger mentioned it would mean losing what the current sidebar (just great).

This afternoon I succumbed to the lure and am in the process of rebuilding my blog sidebar. I knew it would take time because I practiced the concept with one of my work blogs. As I whine about the need to save my old sidebar template tags and reinsert them, I have no one to blame but myself (don't you hate when that happens?) and am trying to convince myself it is a good time to remove things I maybe do not need any longer.

Later that same day....

An hour has passed and the sidebar redesign is complete. With the exception of the Technorati search and my LibraryThing search, I kept most of the original sidebar information and widgets. Now the question remains, do I keep using the Technorati tags in addition to my own blog labels? I'm thinking, yes. Technorati tags connect my blog to other blogs in the "blogosphere" and the internal blog labels connect only to my postings. Though the two may muck up the ending of posts, I'll keep both since they perform different functions.

A quick look outside to the library patio reveals two divergent winter phenomenon; it is snowing (no big surprise) but at 5:10 it is still light. While winter is rearing it's snowy bearings late this year, the signs of spring are evident as daylight lasts a bit longer.

Tags: Blogger Beta,Blogger labels, Blogger sidebar, Widgets